around the body of the stem to be sure that it was not cemented in prior to setting the tile. If concrete is against the valve, use a small cold chisel, 1/4 should work, and clear the valve body. Make sure the socket you are using slips over the valve, not the packing nut. Normally you can safely place a sturdy crescent wrench over the socket and strike it sharply with a 2# sledge hammer, breaking the fiber-gasket seal. Best of Luck Jim
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wrote in article <
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In article <01bc1c65$ce5b5d20$f72674cf@swbroes, <
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writes: Hopefully someone can help. I'm trying to repair a dripping faucet to my main bathtub. The problem is that I can't seem to remove the faucet stems for the hot, cold, or shower diverter. I even went out and bought one of those fancy deep socket sets to do the job. I have tried with all my might (turning the stems counter-clockwise) to get the stems to start turning. None of them will budge. Someone at a local hardware store told me to spray WD-40 on the threads and wait a while. I sprayed the stems and now I'm waiting. My question is that since I really didn't see much of any threads, does anyone know if there are plumbing systems where the stems aren't threaded at all? I'm thinking, maybe they could be sweated on or just an all-in-one unit. Any advice would be appreciated since I've never had this much trouble trying to remove parts of a faucet? The faucet system is made by Sterling (at least that is the name on the drain plate). I had the same problem with my shower faucets. In my case, WD-40 did do the trick after letting it soak a while, but my cry for help on this newsgroup did generate a couple of belated responses that recommended Liquid Wrench. By the way, I bought the set of long sockets, but the bar that came with it didn't give me enough leverage. I took a length of galvanized pipe, cut off about 2 feet, and then put it over the bar that came with the socket, and used that to turn the socket. The bar did bend a little, but the extra length of the pipe did the trick. Brian Brian Leyton MIS Manager, Commercial Petroleum Equipment _______ Be sure to check out Panther's tribute to Jai Maharaj at
http://www.lava.net/~panther/jai.html
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